Review | Film review: Happiness – Kara Wai, Carlos Chan bond in one of best Hong Kong films of 2016
No angel, a young man’s life changes when he takes an elderly stranger’s spare room and soon finds himself caring for her as she develops dementia. What follows is a poignant and heart-warming story
4 stars
After his Chinese mother dies, the temperamental Yuk (Carlos Chan Ka-lok) moves back to Hong Kong to look for the father who abandoned them both years ago. The young man is no angel himself – he loses his cooking job in a tantrum, and is not above stealing money from the girl he sleeps with (and cruelly kicks out) – but it all changes when he begins to live under one roof with Aunt Fanny (Wai), a random stranger with a room to spare.
What follows is a heart-warming drama about learning our responsibilities to other people. As Yuk begins to work in a community centre, which provides him with a nominal love interest (Cya Liu Yase) and a chauvinist buddy (Louis Cheung Kai-chung) to bounce off, the character’s transformation from a selfish, heartless p***k to the primary carer of Aunt Fanny – soon diagnosed with dementia – feels at once authentic and very poignant.
